Saturday, 27 June 2015

Myself and a few of the members of my club, Whitley Bay 3D Gamers , are putting on a demo game at Border Reiver in Gateshead on Saturday 5th September. It'll be a 20mm Afghanistan game using the forthcoming "Fighting Season" adaptation of "Chain of Command" by Too Fat Lardies.
I'll be using my 20mm collection which is already illustrated on this blog, however I've had to look at some specific CoC items namely Patrol Markers and Jump-Off points.
Dougie

I've decided to use discs for the Patrol markers and for the jump-off points appropriate vignettes based on a 40mm round base.

First up are the Taliban, I've done 4 Patrol Marker and 4 Jump-Off Points

Patrol Markers

Jump-Off Points

Some close ups of the jump off points I wanted to go for an Afghan themed look

Thursday, 25 June 2015

Got some work done on these guys, I followed my normal format and completed the bases before priming them black. You get a nice clean join where the figure meets the base, I know this isn't everyone's preference but if I want to add dirt/wear to boots and trousers/legwear I prefer to do this afterwards using washes and filters as opposed to painting the figure, drybrushing the base and getting the figures feet and legs covered in the earth colours.
After doing this I painted the flesh areas using my normal method and completed the hair. I was quite tempted to do one of those dyed ginger beards on one of the fighters but I wasn't sure as to the accuracy of this and whether its prevelant in Afghanistan. Anyone know?
With the Eureka figures the sculptor, Kosta Heristanidis, uses quite a nice tecnique for the eyes on his faces, basically 2 lids. This makes them easier to paint and you can leave off the joy of iris painting!
Dougie

The group as they are now, as I mentioned in previous posts there are a couple of Empress figures masquerading in this group, a kneeling sniper with Dragunov, he's skulking in the rear row and the ISIS salute guy. Now these have standard eyes so I've had to paint them in, this is never easy and takes practice to avoid the cross eyed or bug eyed look lol. As this group develops I'll pick 1 to illustrate the various stages!

A closer view of a Eureka Talib

ISIS salute guy, the eyes are quite difficult to see but I'm happy with them !

Thursday, 18 June 2015

Work commenced on some 28mm Taliban/Afghan forces. They are all the very tidy Eureka castings with the exception of the big guy in the centre doing the ISIS salute, he's Empress from their Insurgent range, Pack INS04 Insurgent Characters, I saw him at York and couldn't resist him ! He'll make a good foreign fighter type. Following my usual procedure, figures cleaned and washed, attached to pennies, bases blended and the old reliable VMC 873 US Field Drab base colour painted on. Dougie

Wednesday, 17 June 2015

I've recently read these 2 books written by Leigh Neville and both published by Osprey;
"The British Army in Afghanistan 2006-14" Elite205
"Special Forces in the War on Terror"

If you are in the slightest interested in this period these books are a must!

"The British Army in Afghanistan 2006-14" is a great place to start if your interest is in this period. Leigh gives a short introduction to Helmand then covers the war in 4 stages, 2006, 2007-2009, 2009-2011 and 2011-2014. This works well and he covers the operations in a logical order with some excellent first person accounts that he's obviously had access to. There's also an excellent section on Weapons and Equipment, which Leigh excels at and to top it off, its been illustrated by the very talented Peter Dennis. I can't recommend this book highly enough, buy it!

"Special Forces in the War on Terror" is also by Osprey, its a hardback coming in at 336 pages chock full of photos. Leigh has again broken this up into logical chapters covering most theatres post 9/11 with an obvious concentration on Iraq and Afghanistan. Again Leigh shows that he's got the right contacts and the detail and descriptions of engagements are excellent, once again I would thoroughly recommend this book!